:: blame the extended gestation.... ::

:: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 ::

Multicentric, multiscalar, multitemporal, multiform, and multicausal process... the complex, emergent product of many different forces operating on many scales. Indeed.


Collapse in Cancun by Doug Henwood:

"The movement that had its coming-out party in Seattle rarely speaks about the economic arrangements it would like to see. It's quick to say 'No!' (a reflex I'm pretty accomplished at myself). It's often quick to invoke language defending national sovereignty and self-reliance when we should really be looking for a more egalitarian and cooperative world, of which trade can be an important part. It's too quick to read international economic relations as part of a general 'race to the bottom' that doesn't really exist. Wages in the United States are higher than when NAFTA took effect, and incomes have also been rising in Western Europe and much of Asia, regions that are deeply involved in world trade. The most troubled part of the world is Africa, a continent that is substantially underrepresented in global trade and capital flows. That's not at all to say that freer trade is always better; it is to say that we need to think and talk more carefully about these things.

Of course, the political and emotional urge behind the "No!" is the desire to protect people and nature from the traumas that typically come with capitalist development. But erecting barriers to trade may be the wrong strategy. Instead of tariffs and import restrictions, which can pit workers in rich countries against those in poorer ones (is it OK to put a Brazilian steelworker out of work to preserve an American job?), why not generous income support and retraining? Why not shift the focus from protecting the job to protecting the worker? "

Beyond Globophobia:

"I won't deny that plant relocations to Mexico have put a sharp squeeze on US employment and earnings, or that the threat of those things has reduced workers' bargaining power. But how much has this contributed to downward mobility and increasing stress? Econometricians say that trade explains about 20-25 percent of the decline in the US real hourly wage during the 1970s and '80s. While not insignificant, that still leaves 75-80 percent to be explained, and the main culprits there are mainly of domestic origin. And why, if globalization was so decisively immiserating, did the real hourly wage rise after 1995, reversing a two-decade slide, even as NAFTA took effect and trade penetration increased?

An important reason that trade doesn't explain more of our economic history since the early 1970s is that 80 percent of us work in services--and a quarter of those in government--which are insulated from international competition. What did "globalization" have to do with Teddy Kennedy and Jimmy Carter's transport deregulation, or with Reagan's firing of the air traffic controllers, or with Clinton's signing of the welfare bill? What does "globalization" have to do with tuition increases at public universities or attacks on affirmative action? While lots of people blame corporate downsizings on globalization, the more powerful influences were Wall Street portfolio managers, who are always demanding higher profits"

:: Jim Nichols 11/19/2003 11:32:00 PM [+] ::
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